a few weeks ago, I discovered that everyone's least favorite lego clone, Best-Lock, had somehow gotten their hands on the license to Stargate. Those sets have finally reached my area, and I decided to pick one up and see exactly how badly Best-Lock had screw up. Here are the results.

The set I found was called "Jack on Abydos", and it included Colonel O'Neill, a MALP, a DHD and a Stargate.

Amazingly, Best-lock minifigs have actually gotten worse over the years. This is supposed to be Colonel O'Neill, and the resemblance is striking accurate....provided you look at it with a severe concussion, be completely drunk, and then take several pounds of hallucinogenic drugs. BL weapons have also gotten worse over time, and the one Colonel O'Neill comes with was clearly given just enough detail to make it clear that it was a gun, and no more. The weird thing is, BL used to make a minifig scale MP5, which is what O'Neill was using when on Abydos, at least in the movie and first few seasons. So BL could have used a more accurate accessory, and decided not to.

The MALP (misidentified by the set as a MALF, only one misprint away from comedy gold), is pretty much completely awful. It looks nothing like either MALP used on the show, and they couldn't even get the color scheme right (which they really have no excuse for, because the rest of the set does have parts in the right color). The instructions are actually wrong, as the camera part of the front (which is almost identical to its lego version), doesn't properly attach to the front of the MALP.

The DHD is not as bad as the MALP, likely because there are fewer parts in it, and thus fewer places for the BL designers to screw up. The little red dot in the center is supposed to attach to another one underneath it, but because the designers have evidentally used a CAD system (with the CAD version of noclip engaged) rather than physical parts, there's a gap between the two parts, so they won't connect, and the top one is constantly falling off. This is as good a time as any to mention that BL has reworked their bricks at some point (read: gotten better at aping Lego), so while their sets aren't as prone to falling apart, new BL parts are not compatible with older ones.

The Stargate, however, is not entirely awful. While it has a paper cutout of the wormhole (which was a bitch to get installed, thanks to how the gate is built), and only 7 chevrons rather than nine (because when designing a toy line that will be in part targeted to fans of the show, half-assing the details is a great idea), it holds together well enough, and the inner dial does actually spin. It's definitely the best part of the set, but that doesn't say much given how awful the rest of the stuff is. All in all, it wasn't the worst thing I've gotten for $5, but it's still pretty bad.

6.O'Neill is completely yellow. Despite the fact that none of the uniforms are yellow, and Stargate is not a Sci-Fi pr0n flick to justify nudity.7.Malf, as in malfunction, is black and grey instead of grey, and does not have a robotic arm. I refuse to accept that robo-dick as an arm. Or that the radar dish is actually placed in the right position. 8.Best-Lock can actually make a profit out of this. Despite the fact that it looks shitty on the box, it looks shitty out of the box, an putting it in the box doesn't make it look any better unless you hide the box inside a woodchipper. And that, from what I can assume, Stargate is more oriented towards adults rather than children.

How the fuck does Best-Lock still exist?

Brickwars: the only tabletop wargame that allows the units to have sexual intercourse with each other, produce offspring, and then use said offspring as Size 1 Explosives.

6.O'Neill is completely yellow. Despite the fact that none of the uniforms are yellow, and Stargate is not a Sci-Fi pr0n flick to justify nudity.7.Malf, as in malfunction, is black and grey instead of grey, and does not have a robotic arm. I refuse to accept that robo-dick as an arm. Or that the radar dish is actually placed in the right position. 8.Best-Lock can actually make a profit out of this. Despite the fact that it looks shitty on the box, it looks shitty out of the box, an putting it in the box doesn't make it look any better unless you hide the box inside a woodchipper. And that, from what I can assume, Stargate is more oriented towards adults rather than children.

I guess people who have no idea nor interest in toys (=most adults) keep buying this crap for their kids/grandchildren etc becauseit's cheaper than Lego.

To get an idea how clueless they are just hang around a place that sells Lego in the weeks before Saturnalia. You will see elderly people in droves being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of colourfull boxes. And that's all they see. Boxes and boxes of toys, somewith hefty price tags. The inevitable outcome is that they will call relatives and ask which of the boxes to buy. Here is a true story from a few days ago. Two women, probably grandmother and mother, were checking out Lego sets to buyfor Saturnalia. They were actually considering to shell out the money for that Legends of Chima Lion Temple and while examiningthe box, counting the number of minifigs it included the mother added knowingly "Oh, they put more things on the front of thebox than are actually in there". I thought about being nice and telling them that every minifig, vehicle and building depicted reallyis in there. But Lego does not pay me so i didn't. One happy child less because naturally they decided to reconsider and will probablybuy something smaller or if they're really cheap get some KRE-O (hardly any Best Lock or Mega Blocks available in Germany).